Chapter Seven

"Willow!"

Xander darted forward to catch his friend before she fell. He was not quick enough; her body thumped to the floor heavily. Her eyes were open but rolled halfway back into her head. The little bit of iris that was still visible was glazed over, unseeing.

Xander cradled her head in his arms, gazing up at Giles with a mixture of accusation and panic. "You know what is causing this!" he said angrily. "Make it stop!"

His calm manner vanishing completely, Giles snapped back: "Am I always to be the hero in this group? Am I the only one to know anything? I don't know what is causing this—I know she is channeling, but I have no idea why. She said herself that she is connected to Spike, but I don't know how. How should I know how to stop it?"

"It wasn't until you gave her that coven's magic that she started acting this way!" Xander retorted.  "Willow told me…she said ever since that night she had been able to feel things that other people feel…to know their thoughts. Now she's in pain because of something stupid Spike has done to himself—and it is your fault!"

"My fault?" Giles repeated, his face reddening with anger. "Xander, might I remind you why I had to give Willow that magic? Had I not done that to tap into her humanity she would probably have destroyed Sunnydale and everyone in it! If the only side affect is that Willow now feels too much then that is but a small price to pay!"

"We have to do something," Xander insisted. "This is killing her!"

"Stop it! Stop it!" Buffy shouted, hands over her ears. The other two stopped arguing and stared at her.

"We don't have time to argue. We need to figure out how to stop this. We have to help Spike."

There was a silence. Xander and Giles were looking at Buffy with something akin to shock. Dawn looked pleased. But no one said anything.

Buffy chewed on her lip, made uneasy by the quiet. She struggled to justify her words to her friends. "Obviously something is happening to Spike and, for whatever reason, Willow is feeling the pain he is going through. The quickest way to save her from that would be to save Spike from whatever he is going through…right?"

"What?" Xander's tone let Buffy know just how ludicrous he thought her plan was. "Help Spike? Are you stupid, Buffy or just temporarily insane? He's a rapist, a killer! The sooner we are rid of him the better! I would think you of all people would understand that!" He sneered. "But maybe you are too blinded by his monstrous good looks to see anything anymore."

Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Watch it, Xander," she warned.

"No!" he snarled. "You are acting like a fool and it is time someone pointed it out! You sleep with that—that thing for months on end…and when you finally get up the guts enough to end it he tries to rape you. Now your best friend is lying on the floor in agony and your first thought is 'we have to help Spike?' Where are you priorities?

"Xander…"

"Never mind," he interrupted her. "I don't have to ask—I know what takes precedence with you. Whoring around with that walking corpse is all you care about." He snickered slightly. "Maybe I was wrong about Spike. Maybe it wasn't rape after all—maybe you asked for it. Maybe you liked it."

Buffy slapped Xander so hard his head rocked to one side. "SHUT UP!" she screamed.

Giles grabbed Xander's arm, preventing the other man from retaliating to Buffy's attack. "Stop it, Xander! I know you're worried about Willow, but you aren't helping anyone by acting this way!"

Xander made motions to speak again, but before he could, Dawn grabbed Buffy's arm. "I'll help you, Buffy. Just tell me what to do."

Buffy smiled weakly at her younger sister. She shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts enough to formulate a plan. "We'll check his crypt first," she said. "He probably isn't there, but maybe we can find some clue as to what happened."

"Buffy?" Giles stepped forward. "I'll go with you. Who knows who—or what—you may be facing."

"Fine. You can check his usual haunts—the Bronze, that sleazy demon bar he likes, Clem's.… Dawn and I will look in the cemetery. We can meet back at his crypt afterward to compare notes," said Buffy. She shot Xander a cold glance. "You stay here and look after Willow."

"And if something goes wrong?" Xander asked, somewhat subdued.

"Do the best you can to keep that from happening," Buffy said simply. She nodded at Dawn encouragingly. "Run get the weapons."

She waited until Dawn had left the room then turned to the two men. "I'm only going to say this once," she told them quietly, "so I'm going to be very clear. If either one of you tries to hide anything from me or stop me from helping Spike in any way, I will make you pay for it."

Giles raised an eyebrow. "I won't try to stop you, Buffy. I want to see Willow get better as much as you do."

She met his eyes squarely. "I'm not doing this just for Willow. You know that."

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Spike stared at Nikolai with his one good eye—the left one being so swollen and bloody as to be completely useless.

"Go on."

Nikolai's hand froze mid-air, his hand still clutching the steel pipe he had used to beat Spike back into consciousness just moments before. "What?"

Spike met his gaze coldly, completely without fear. He knew now there was nothing to fear. He could stand the pain—he could stand anything, even death. They couldn't break him. Even if they killed him.

"I said go on," he repeated. His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper; but the words forced out of his swollen, lacerated, and very sore throat were strong and clear. He rasped louder: "Go on, Nikolai! Give it to me! Do your worst!"

Nikolai frowned, displeased by Spike's reaction to his abuse. There was something in the traitor that defied his understanding. He was accustomed to his victims begging for mercy, not asking him for more. He had given his worst and still he could not break the little bastard. Cunning though he was, Nikolai was unable understand the complexities of a human being. He did not know that beneath the weak flesh and warm blood Spike was still Spike. Pure steel. All he knew was that if Spike wasn't pleading mercy from this treatment then perhaps he would under a more cruel persecution.

And if there was one thing Nikolai knew it was how to be cruel.

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It was obvious something was terribly wrong the moment they stepped into Spike's crypt. The door was hanging from its frame, almost ripped completely off. Inside, it looked as though the place had been ransacked. Books and papers were strewn everywhere, some of them ripped apart. The television was missing, as was everything else of value. Most everything else had been broken, torn, or otherwise completely destroyed.

Broken glass crunched underneath Buffy's feet as she crossed the stone floor. She bent to grab the trapdoor that led to the tunnels underneath the cemetery. The heavy marble slab covering it was heavy and unwieldy, and she had a hard time lifting it. "Help me, Dawn."

Dawn stooped beside her. Each of them grasped one end of the large, flat stone and pulled with all their might. There was a grating sound of protest as the stone slid out of the doorway. They dropped the stone wedge and it crashed to the floor, sending small chunks of marble flying in every direction.

"Stay here," Buffy ordered, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans. "I'll check down here and if we don't find anything—" She paused.

Dawn paled slightly. "Buffy?" she said. "If we don't find anything…?"

Buffy forced a hopeful smile. "Then we'll look somewhere else."

She slid over the edge of the door, dropping down to the dirt floor below.

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Giles look around the demon bar, feeling uneasy. The room was dark but not dark enough to hide the grime that layered the walls and floor. There was an unpleasant smell of beer and cheap cigarettes hanging in the air, as well as the thick, sweet odor of blood, which some patrons were drinking from tall glasses. The demons watched suspiciously as he crossed the dingy floor to the bar. Normally a human would be ripped apart and devoured before he took his second step into the room, but as this one was carrying a crucifix, a stake, and a vile of holy water, they had little choice but to let him pass.

The bartender was a tall, piggish demon with pinkish-grey skin and a large ring through his nose. He frowned darkly as Giles slid onto a stool. "We don't serve your kind here."

Giles laughed nervously. "Yes, well, as appealing as the drinks menu is…that is not why I am here."

"Oh no?" The demon sneered. "And why are you here?"

"Information." Giles fumbled in his wallet, finally withdrawing a twenty-dollar bill. He held it out to the bartender, but did not release his grip on it. "I'm looking for someone."

The demon tugged lightly on the bill and, when Giles refused to release it, he sighed. "Go on."

"There is a vampire who frequented this establishment quite a bit…a thin, very blond vampire. His name is—"

"Spike." The demon nodded sagely. "I know him. He hasn't been in here for quite a while. Months, if you want to know the truth. We pretty much gave him up for dead."

There was a pregnant pause.

Giles nodded encouragingly. "…until…?"

The demon smiled. He jerked the bill from Giles' hand and pocketed it before the other man could blink.

"Until we found him."

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The secret chamber of Spike's crypt was not so ravaged as the upper level. True, there were ripped up sheets of paper scattered everywhere, but other than that everything appeared to be intact. At the very least, nothing had been stolen.

Buffy crept across the quiet, dim cavern. Spike had accumulated all kinds of crap since she had last been down here. There were piles of clothes—including three leather jackets she had never seen him wear—and piles of handsome leather-bound books. There were also bits and pieces of furniture all of which appeared to be in various stages of repair. Once these must have been beautiful antiques, but they were now so chipped and broken Buffy doubted Spike could ever revive their past glory. Buffy paused in front of a beautiful acoustic guitar that was propped against the wall.

Where had he gotten all of this? And when? And…why?

She stroked a finger over the glossy wood of the guitar neck, wondering. She had never heard him singing, save for the single time he illustrated the greatness of the Ramones in an attempt to impress her on a stakeout. And, of course, there was that time he broke into song along with the rest of the town. But that was a spell. She had never thought of him as one to have musical aspirations. Then again, maybe he didn't. Maybe he had stolen it to pawn.

Something slipped under her feet, making Buffy throw out her arms to keep her balance. She lifted her foot and looked down at the offending piece of paper that lay beneath. It looked like a note. She picked it up, expecting—hoping—to find a clue, a note of explanation.

Instead, she found a poem.

Dog-eared, wrinkled, and half-torn, the paper was not easy to read. Buffy had to squint in the dim light to make out the printed words, which had obviously been torn from one of the leather volumes.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

 

your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

 

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

 

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Buffy, knowing nothing about poetry and even less about the poets themselves, had hard time making sense of the text. She wondered for a brief moment if it was possible Spike wrote this. But no. This had obviously been torn from a book; there was a page number listed at the bottom and the words Complete Poems listed at the top.

Obviously, this was one of the poems that had adorned Spike's shrine; she could just see the tiny hole where a pushpin had been. There were also small, penciled annotations scrawled across the sheet of paper in Spike's handwriting. The pencil lines were so smudged and faded they were mostly unreadable. However, there was one word she could just make out. Scribbled next to the third verse was Buffy.

Buffy crumpled the paper in her fist, her throat constricting painfully. Not for the first time she began to doubt her decisions about their relationship. The intensity of Spike's emotions had always scared her. Love, pain, anger…he seemed to feel is all too much, and he reacted to them without thought. Very often he seemed out of control because of this, making it appear to her that she needed to protect herself from him, that he would hurt her if given the chance. Yet he had been given plenty of chances and he had not hurt her yet. In fact, increasingly, it had been she who had hurt him.

She bit her lip. God what had she done? Spike might be dead by now, and the last words she had ever said to him were I'm embarrassed of you. How could she have been so cruel? What kind of person was she anyway?

Before she could find an answer to that question, a piercing shriek penetrated the thick earthen walls of the chamber.

"Buffy!"

It was Dawn.

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Giles scowled. "Well I must say that is quite a lot of money to pay for a very vague piece of information."

The demon smiled at him across the bar. "You want me elaborate?" His gravely voice was thick with amusement.

"Details would be nice."

"All right." The pig-faced demon leaned across the chipped countertop until his nose was almost touching Giles' face. "First off we know about Spike, so don't think you are protecting him or hiding anything by calling him a vampire. We know better. We know where he's been and what he has become."

Giles gave a start of surprise then quickly recovered himself. "How did you find out?"

"Well he wasn't exactly keeping it a secret," said the demon loftily. "He had a scuffle with a group of vampires the other night, dusted three of them. The fourth one got away, came here to tell us the tale. It turned out that throughout the fight Spike never used his weapon of choice, never once switched to game face…that was a clue."

"And then?"

The demon shrugged. "Everyone knows Spike is pals with that soppy Clem. They use to come in here to play poker all the time. So a couple of the boys went to talk to Clem. With a little persuasion he finally admitted that Spike took a trip to Africa to see a demon…and that he didn't come back the same."

"So you know he's human," Giles said. "Now what?"

The bartender smiled and leaned back, busying himself with a pile of grubby glasses. He swiped each one out with an equally grubby rag then placed it on a tray underneath the bar. For a moment, it seemed as though he was going to ignore Giles' question. Then:

"Can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

The demon winked at him jauntily. "It's a secret. I mean we wouldn't want you charging to the rescue now, would we?"

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"BUFFY!"

Dawn opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could, her wide eyes glued to the figure advancing out of the shadows.

"Shh! Shh!" the creature hissed. He stepped closer to her, close enough so that Dawn could see his face. "It's me!"

Dawn stopped screaming.

"Clem?" she said, her voice infused with surprise as well as relief. She was very pleased to see that there was not a malevolent demon about to pounce out of the shadows to devour her, but Clem's appearance was enough of a shock in and of itself. One floppy, batlike ear was torn to ribbons and crusted with dried blood. Clem's lip was split and the dough-white flesh of his jaw was now a mottled blue-black with bruises.

"Shh!" Clem said again, motioning frantically for Dawn to be quiet. "Don't—they might still be around. Be quiet!"

"Who might still be around?"

Both Dawn and Clem turned in the direction of the voice. Buffy was emerging from the trapdoor, looking less than pleased.

"Clem," she repeated grimly, "who might still be around?"

Clem shook his head emphatically. "I c—can't tell you that, Buffy," he stuttered nervously. "I—I'm sorry but I really can't."

"Can't tell me what?" Buffy demanded. "Who was here?"

Clem didn't answer.

"They took Spike, didn't they? Whoever was here…they took Spike…and you know where he is!"

"N—no," Clem insisted. "I—I don't know, not really…"

"But you have an idea?" she pressed.

He nodded reluctantly.

"Who are they, Clem?"

"Buffy, I really can't," he whined. "They'll kill me if I tell you."

"And I will kill you if you don't!" Buffy pulled a stake out of her bag and held it to Clem's chest. "Tell me now, Clem! They might be killing him while you stand here wasting my time!"

"I'm sorry!" sobbed Clem. "I didn't want to do it—they made me!"

Buffy leaned her weight against the stake so that the point pressed harder against Clem's flesh. "They made you what?"

"They made me tell them what he did!"

Buffy froze, staring at the weeping demon in disbelief. "You didn't tell them he is human?"

"They tortured me!" he blubbered. "They would have killed me if I didn't tell!"

"And I'm going to kill you now!" she snapped, raising the stake threateningly. "But first you are going to tell me who they are!"

"They are vampires—demons, a whole bunch of them. They came looking for him because a couple of nights ago he rescued her—"nodding at Dawn "—from four vampires while you patrolled. He killed three of them but one got away—and that one was sharp enough to realize Spike hadn't changed at all during the fight—he didn't unleash the demon in him. Therefore, the vampire assumed there was no demon. They came here to be sure and they found me; they made me tell them the truth. Then they lay and waited until Spike came."

"Did they kill him?" Dawn asked, unable to keep quiet any longer.

"Not yet—the vampire, the ringleader, didn't want to kill him yet. He wanted to…uh…"

"Play with him," finished Buffy grimly. "It figures."

Clem nodded miserably.

"Where did they take him?"

"I don't know—"

"Yes, you do!" Buffy told him. "And either you tell me now or I will make sure your other ear matches that one." She motioned to his lacerated ear with her stake.

Clem took a moment to weigh his options. Finally, he sighed. "There is a condemned warehouse near the railroad…they may have gone there."

Buffy shoved Clem so that he stumbled backward, lost his footing, and fell to the floor. "You'd better pray he is still alive when we get there."

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End of Chapter Seven

Author's note: The poem quoted in this chapter is E.E. Cummings' somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond. For those of you who are not familiar with E.E. Cummings the misspelled words and grammatical errors are supposed to be there; he wrote it that way. I am using the poem without permission but I mean no infringement.